a project of Teaching Matters, KAPPA IV and the NYC DOE

Success Out of the Box

We handed out XO machines to the 6th grade students at KAPPA IV for the first time on Friday. It was a very exciting experience for all involved. Solangel Brujan and Professor Almanzar structured the students’ first experience with the machines to ensure that they know how to open and care for the computers as well set up their names correctly. They also provided the students with time to explore on their own. We focused on the Record activity and the Write activity to start.

The students were totally enthralled. Towards the end of the experience, we asked students to write their reflections in a document on their XOs. I think they convey their impressions better than I can. Here are just a few:

Some first impressions from the students at KAPPA IV (taken from the documents they drafted on the XO for the first time)…

My impressions of the XO laptop is that there are many features. This is so cool because you can take it home and finish any work that you can do. I like that the keyboard is quiet. This is the best thing that ever happened to me. It has a handle and it is for Kids. That is so cool. You can take it anywhere. I LOVE THIS NEW LAPTOP. It is so easy that I will use it to study for all my tests. My breath was taken away.

I think this xo computer is the the best computer that I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s poppin’. It can do things that a regular computer can’t do.

What i like about this xo is that it is so cool and it does not make noise. It is better than the computer that I have home because it does not have internet and this one does. I think all the kids are going to buy it and like it.

It is cool. The keyboard is really soft and with this little gadget I’ll be able to have a better career and a great job for the future.

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2 Responses

I am preparing 4 xo’s and a school server for installation in a NYC public charter school. I am interested in the details of your installation. I noted your post on configuring wireless access. What build are you running on your XOs and on your school server?

It wasn’t clear to me whether you attached your active antenna to your school server. It appears that you aren’t, but rather are connecting the XOs to an existing school wireless access point.
Are you running the ejabberd server? Are your students using the mesh networking yet via the jabber server? How is that working?

I plan to be in NYC in early March to set up my machines … I would love to have an opportunity to talk with you about your plans.

Hi Carol – We have 30 XO’s in a classroom at the moment; and yes, they’re all configured to connect the NYCDOE wireless network. They are running build 653. They literally opened them up yesterday and did some initial exploring – they did a simple share, but nothing with the jabber server yet.

We have a school server running in our lab, are playing with some configuration / hosting options and are talking with the NYCDOE about possibly piloting that. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are a number of security protocols we have to conform to w/ the server and the wireless – so we still working on ironing everything out. Shoot me an email “off-blog” – eodonnell@teachingmatters.org if you would like to setup a time to talk.